January 15, 2016
8 Things All SEOs Want You to Know

In the world of digital marketing, us SEOs deal with common myths, misconceptions, and frequently asked questions on a regular basis. Here are a few things all SEOs want you to know whether you’re thinking about starting an SEO campaign or already kicked things off!

1. Ranking Takes Time.

SEO campaigns are equivalent to preparing a 6-course meal compared to drive-thru fast food. There are so many varying factors that tie into ranking a keyword, and only paying attention to one factor will not make the steak cook any faster – if you know what I mean. It’s important to look at the strategy as a whole and distribute efforts as evenly as possible and above all else—stay consistent with your efforts.

2. Your Keyword Ranking Positions Change Constantly.

Google updates its algorithm 500-600 times a year on average. That’s more than once a day. Keyword ranking fluctuations are natural and expected. Things like location, query, time of day, and past search history will affect your ranking.

3. We Dislike Your Competitors Just As Much As You Do.

It’s necessary to scope the competition on a regular basis. Getting a leg up on the competition is certainly a goal, however, looking for ways to de-rank or de-index their site is called black hat SEO, aka cheating, and we won’t do it. Instead, we can focus on what to emulate or improve within the strategy for a competitive edge.

4. Not Every Competitor Is An SEO Competitor.

Often times another business is deemed as a competitor because they sell the same products/services you do, but that doesn’t mean they are actively pursuing an SEO campaign. A good mix of SEO competitors could include local and national competition, and also competitors who actively pursue a full digital marketing campaign as a whole (email, social, SEO, paid search, etc.).

In theory, ranking high for value keywords targeted on relevant landing pages will continuously increase organic sessions to your site, which flows over into increased organic revenue/conversions. While we can track conversions or micro-conversions, factors like site usability, messaging, promotions, and price point can play a large part in your conversion rate. We recommend testing landing page functions, colors, and designs to see what your visitors respond to the best.

6. When We Say “Recommendation“ We Really Mean “Please Do This, It Will Really Help…”

Often times we don’t hold the key to the backend of your site and need your help in implementing our recommendations. Taking too long to implement recommendations or not implementing them at all could negatively impact performance. Especially because Google crawls sites more often when changes are made consistently to the site, time is of the essence. We want to show search engines we’re making frequent optimization updates to the site giving them a reason to rank us higher and keep coming back to the site.

7. Good Content Is Your Most Valuable Ongoing Initiative.

If there is one thing you could do to consistently improve your website’s authority it’s this—good content. Good content is relevant information for your users that should also be engaging. Google has gotten good at appraising content value. They’ve gone on to say that they crawl social signals but haven’t officially included them as a ranking factor. (Hint, anyone?) So while keywords, word count, tone of voice, and URL structure are important, we should really be thinking about how relevant and engaging the content is.

There is definitely good and bad to this statement. There are a lot of data insights we can use from other channels. For example, top performing keywords and ad copy in PPC. We can also look at low Quality Score keywords and try to improve the landing pages to reduce spend in PPC. Similarly, strategies between all your digital efforts should be cohesive and seamless. If you’re working with multiple agencies or have a mix of agency and in-house, we recommend getting together at least twice a month to ensure a cohesive strategy across all your digital marketing channels.